Avro Arrow

The legend of the Arrow is the story of a near perfect machine, a supersonic aero plane created by Canadian engineers, technicians and skilled workers only to be willfully destroyed by Canadian politicians in 1959. This destruction included not only the cancellation of the project, but also the destruction of all visible evidence that the aircraft had ever existed. After more than thirty years, the story of the Arrow has refused to die. One would expect the memory of the event to remain vivid in the minds of those who worked on the project, but there has been a surprisingly wide general interest as well.

Shortly after the second world war, the Canadian military searched for a fighter aircraft that would be suitable for home defense. At that time, the threat was considered to be from long range, high altitude bombers, probably coming in from over the Arctic. As a suitable aircraft could not be found, it was decided to have one designed and built by the new Canadian firm, Avro Canada. This aircraft, was a twin engined, two seat, high altitude, all weather fighter.

There were major "reasons" given by the government:

There can be many reasons why it was cancelled but the biggest was the immense pressure put on Diefenbaker by President Eisenhower and the United States Air Force.

1) "The program was too costly." This appears to have been the major excuse for the cancellation. As described above, the Arrow was an economically efficient design. It was not a cheap aircraft, but then very little modern military hardware is cheap. Diefenbaker's claim was that the Arrow program would have cost two billion dollars by 1964 for 169 aircraft or 12 million for each aircraft and that this was too much.2) "The aircraft did not have sufficient range." The Arrow not only could meet this requirement.3) An alternative weapon, the Bomarc, could do the same job at a much lower cost to Canada.4) "Foreign sales, especially to the U.S., were unlikely." Foreign sales were unlikely unless the Canadian government bought the Arrow first and put it into service.

It's the closest thing Canadian industry has to a love story and a murder mystery. The Avro Arrow, a sleek white jet interceptor developed in Malton, Ontario , could have been many things. It might have become the fastest plane in the world, our best defence against Soviet bombers, the catalyst to propel Canada to the forefront of the aviation industry. Instead, it became a $400-million pile of scrap metal, and the stuff of legends.